Golden Age of Radio

The Milwaukee Journal – Feb 4, 11940 THE Hollywood hills give ArchOboler a lift! “It seems,” he says, “that all these Hollywood people live on top of cliffs and mountains. And when you go calling it’s no cinch. When Mrs. Walter Huston was on the program recently I took the supporting cast and drove all the way up to her home—6,000 feet above sea level on the ‘Rim of the World drive,’ one of the most breath taking, heart fluttering journeys you can imagine. “In half an hour you leave the orange groves and are up in the ice and snow. They’ve got a home like a feudal castle. Just imagine this tremendous redwood house, with a vast living room three stories high, and a stone fireplace large enough to roast an ox. Well, I toted my portable recording outfit all the way up there and we had a really good rehearsal because everyone was rested. “I’m getting so that I can’t produce a play unless I’m sitting on the edge of a cliff.” Several month ago, after a whirlwi...

The Milwaukee Journal – Jun 10, 1938 Erno Rapee Believes Radio Creates Music Lovers THE United States, claims Erno Rapee, director of the Radio City Music Hall symphony orchestra, is fast becoming a nation of highly discriminating music lovers, a country in many ways more hospitable to even the most revolutionary in modern music than any to be found in present day Europe. A few years ago in America, Rapee says, to the average man Tschaikowsky was merely an unpronounceable Russian name; Debussy, a radical French composer whom none but a few of the musically elect were supposed to be able to fathom, and Georges Enesco, modern Rumanian master, an artist in composition as well as in concert completely unknown. But now the tide has turned. The voice of a people, long frowned on by “friends of music” on the cultured continent, the accredited home of great art, is being culticated, Rapee believes. And more and more America calls for the masterpieces, both contemporary and cla...

Oboler Sacrifices Vacation in Face of ‘Der Tag’ By SI STEINHAUSER Arch Oboler , radio dramatist, who has been authoring and producing a “Plays For America” radio series , had intended taking a vacation but threats from Nazis have changed his plans. “I’ll go on until I’m exhausted,” is his reply to notes which inform him “You’re on the List but in red for Der Tag.”

Here's a fascinating story from Fate Magazine written by Arch Oboler , one of the golden age of radio's premier radio authors and directors. Born in Chicago, Illinois on December 7, 1907 to parents Leon and Clara Oboler, Arch Oboler was a director, producer, and a prolific writer. He had his very first script sold when he was still in highschool. He started to become famous after being hired by NBC in 1936 as the writer for its extremely popular horror radio series called Lights Out, whose original writer Wyllis Cooper left the show. Oboler was considered by many as the father of radio drama. Apart from his work in the radio, he also worked as a writer for many films, theater, and television series. He also wrote a couple of books. Most of you here would probably remember Bill Crosby’s routine about one of Oboler’s radio plays entitled The Chicken Heart. Another of his popular works include the Bwana Devil, which was the world’s first full-length film in 3D. Oboler m...